Like many people I have long argued that the real challenge for MLS is to break the TV market. Europe’s big leagues typically generate about half of their revenues from TV, while MLS is probably below 20%. The current MLS contract will run until 2022 and pays around $90 million a year of which a significant fraction goes to run the national teams. With less than $5 million going to each of the franchises, the size of the broadcast deal limits the willingness of owners to pay the big bucks that will attract the top talent. This is a Catch 22 for the league, since better players means better soccer and a more attractive product for broadcasters to sell. MLS needs to find a way to boost their product on TV by the time the next contract comes along.

The national TV rating data collected by Collin Werner provides an interesting insight into the current position of MLS. He has been collecting national viewing figure for MLS over the last season and for all TV soccer since August. He kindly allowed me to looks at the data and here are some of the highlights that struck me:

1. MLS share of TV soccer is scarily small. Over the period August – December MLS accounted for only 7% of total viewing of soccer in US- while Liga MX accounted for one third.

MLS

7%

La Liga

9%

Other

12%

International

17%

EPL

22%

Liga MX

33%

Note that MLS accounted for 6% of all games played, including post-season play which in theory should be the most attractive. MLS plays more games than are actually broadcast nationally. The figures here do not include local broadcast numbers. I have not heard anyone claim that local TV audiences are on average very large, so I don’t think their inclusion would change much.

To have any chance of attracting a large contract MLS would surely need to have a much larger share of its own market. It’s true that there were twice as many EPL and Liga MX games shown, and MLS will indeed expand its supply of games in the next few years with the expansion teams. That should help to increase market share. But…

2. MLS games are lagging behind Liga MX, the EPL and international games in terms of audience per game:

Competition

Grand Total

CL

120,608

La Liga

147,270

MLS

287,046

International

305,743

EPL

393,037

Liga MX

584,171

Once again the big rival is Liga MX, with double the average audience size. Obviously Liga MX has a large following among those of Mexican origin. But there’s another factor at play too- Liga MX has a time-zone advantage over the EPL…

3. Prime time is the most attractive programming slot, which runs from 8pm to 11pm, and there are never any EPL games played in this slot (since the UK is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Time, they would have to play in the middle of the night). By contrast, 70% of Liga MX games are played in prime time, 48% of international games and, notably, 53% of MLS games (note: I based my prime time definition on the Eastern time zone). Here is something I think should worry MLS. Compare prime and other time audience size:

other time

prime time

Liga MX

467211

633011

International

144702

482269

MLS

317333

261086

The table shows that while audiences rise for Liga MX and international games played in prime time, they actually fall for MLS (and note the data includes the MLS Cup final which attracted a 2 million audience in the US). Why would the MLS audience fall in prime time? One reason could be that in prime time there’s more competition from other sports. This is the double bind of MLS: the EPL can draw a 50% larger audience going head-to-head in daytime TV while Liga MX can draw an audience that is twice the size in prime time. The problem for MLS is competition…

4. MLS does better when the other soccer leagues are not playing. The table below shows the monthly figures for MLS viewing this year since March:

March

284,667

April

246,000

May

277,571

June

478,200

July

324,100

August

166,706

September

297,545

October

214,071

November

286,429

Cleary the best months are June and July, when only baseball is being played in the US and the other major soccer leagues are between seasons (of course, Euro 2016 ran from June 10 to July 10, so there was still some competition, but none of that was prime time).

MLS is competing in an overcrowded market. Between August and December MLS supplied only 6% of soccer games shown on TV, at the same time as facing competition from the NFL and college football, as well, for at least part of the time, from MLB, NBA and NHL.

Merge MLS and Liga MX, or at least the most ambitious clubs in each league. Both leagues already share many sponsors and TV partners. Do away with any restrictive roster slotting and salary budget caps. Schedule kickoffs in only certain viewing windows for a more streamlined TV product. And keep a modest limit on regular season matches. A league stretching from Montreal to Mexico City would be a commercial success and in time could grow to be the top league in the Americas.

It’ll be interesting to see what the televised sports landscape is like by the time MLS renews its TV deal in 2022. MLS plans to have a 28-team league by then; the strategy seems to be to increase its viewership numbers by adding teams and new TV markets.

I can bring myself as a counterexample. I’ve been watching MLS for well over a decade and a half now, and I do think that’s better entertainment for my money than the wast majority of other American professional sports: it’s more dynamic and engrossing, players are healthier, fitter, much more intelligent, resourceful, and inventive than the people functioning on the field in those other sports. I come to games fairly regularly, time permitting, and I’m subscribing to MLS Live because we’ve cut the cord recently (hundreds of cable channels — and absolutely nothing to watch, but this is a different topic; I digress).
I’ve just finished watching Quakes’ live game with Columbus online, and I saw Billy Beane, the current A’s EVP and the protagonist of “Moneyball”, in attendance; I suppose he thinks that soccer is a good reason to spend his ticket money. Just saying…